1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an apparatus for tracking a work process that indicates a workflow in various work systems, and a computer product.
2. Description of the Related Art
Due to a phase-in of work systems along with growth of a company or introduction of individual work system for each business unit, it is often the case that various work systems are present within a company. Because such various work systems have a complex relationship therebetween, it is difficult to grasp works as a whole. For example, such a problem can arise that it is difficult to understand progress of an entire work, problems in the work process, and what kind of an effect is expected when an investment in a new information technology (IT) is made for which part in a business.
For this reason, analysis of a work process that indicates a flow of work in the various work systems has conventionally been performed when works in operation are to be improved. Thus, it is determined which part has a problem and what should be improved. A workflow system is a system used for analyzing a flow of works in the work systems. The workflow system in general includes an existing flow engine and an application to be automatically executed in the order according to a workflow presented.
A workflow supporting system and a workflow supporting method that enables to refer to managing information including history and progress and to track a flow even for a workflow that range various different work systems or non-routine works are disclosed in, for example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Publication No. H10-63747.
However, in the conventional technology described above, it is impossible to grasp relation among applications that branches into various processes at some midpoints. In such case, to grasp the relation among the applications, the work process and an analyzing scheme have to be reviewed by, for example, dividing the workflow into processes to be analyzed separately.
In addition, most of the existing work systems do not process works according to a workflow. Therefore, to track a work flow in different work systems, it is necessary to collect data including processed data and unprocessed data by accessing each of the work systems to analyze the data. Such workflow tracking is practically impossible.